The demons do not charge us straight away, but instead fan out to surround us like the stars of the surface fan out across the dome of the night-sky. Not a single angle of escape is left to us. It seems they regret letting so many hundreds of dwarves slip from their grasp after the first assault.

  Vanerak dives faster. Nazak urges us to follow. I double the frequency of my kicking and clutching, and not even the ruby can drive away all the fatigue this causes. My muscles burn like the magma and I gasp for breath hard.

  More sparks of heat shine in the grand entrance to the tower. Vanerak makes a complex hand movement, and our formation becomes like a spearhead, with me in its center, Vanerak its extended tip with Halax right behind him, and Nazak behind him. Helzar takes the rear. We accelerate, and the demons around us close their net. A hundred spheres of twisting heat streak toward us from a hundred angles.

  Our force contains no one but elites, however, and discipline is maintained. No one turns. We continue to speed toward the entrance—as speedily as one can move through sticky, molten stone.

  The demons are going to win the race. Vanerak turns and pulls up close to Nazak, who subsequently makes some hand signals and charges back. Most of the second degree runeknights follow him. One grabs me by the upper arm and forces me around. It seems that I am to fight alongside Nazak, then. Perhaps Vanerak, already back to swimming fast for the tower, has assigned me to be his responsibility.

  The demons grow closer, a hundred stars all falling toward me. Life-Ripper shivers in my grasp, raring to be let loose. The other dwarves spread out a little around me; Nazak comes beside me with axe ready. I can sense the shape of the demons clearly now, sense the hundreds of looping lines that make them up. Each travels at exactly the same pace; half then slow and fall a few yards behind the others.

  They will hit us in two successive waves, fifty apiece. I change my grip on Life-Ripper to a one-handed one. I will thrust with its maximum range and use my free hand and its coruscating halo of life-heat to ward off any demons that attempt to possess me.

  Thrust! I lash out, gauntlet imparting extra speed. Life-Ripper's twin spines plunge deep into a demon, which dies instantly, bursting apart from within. I slash back, and Life-Ripper enters another, tears it apart too. Nazak slashes a demon that appears before my face. Raging heat dissipates into ambient heat. The other runeknights stab and slash with their own weapons. A dozen demons are slain in half that many seconds—still there are many more.

  I sense a dwarf beside me convulse violently. His hands are grasping at his face, then in the next moment he is slashing at the air-cable of the runeknight next to him. I stab with Life-Ripper's reverse-spike up into his helm.

  Heat bursts out like unreal flames from the wound. Two more demons converge on my helmet and Nazak does not slash at them. I curse him—though maybe he just did not see—but Life-Ripper is in position anyway. I kill one then draw back through the other as it sends raging heat into my helm. The heat vanishes.

  I get a further respite: the demons are drawing back. I yell in triumph, for we have destroyed half their number for the cost of only one of our own. My runes are indomitable.

  “Come on!” I scream into my helm. “Come back and die!”

  They seem to hear me. They change their formation, become a blazing spearhead set before us. They pull back, ready themselves to thrust. Nazak makes another complicated hand-movement and the runeknights change formation around me again, making a small circle, a buckler to face the oncoming blow.

  Behind us, Vanerak and the other half of the force have made it into the tower.

  The fifty demons rush. We six stab and slash forward as one. Eddies ripple around our blades and the demons dash themselves apart on them. Ten or so make it through, and we tear at them with gauntlet and parry with weapons. I kill one as it envelops the head of the runeknight beside me—but I make sure that Life-Ripper's thorns badly scratch the runes on his visor, and half-break his heat-mask.

  Only three demons left now, hovering between us and the tower entrance. They dash for it. I stab out and Life-Ripper's thorns catch. I drag back and sever the lines of heat. The demon manages to retreat a dozen more yards before it comes apart completely, coils of heat unraveling like an animal's guts.

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  Forward, Nazak signals to us with a slash of his axe. We swim ahead, rushing for the great dark tower's comparatively tiny mouth. My heart is beating wildly and a thrill is coursing through my blood. The true metal is proving its worth many times over. The demons fell apart at just mere touches, and what is more, it pierced through the armor of a second degree nearly with ease. It was a thin part of his armor, yes, and was being burned up from the opposite side too; despite this, that was still the most deadly blow I have ever struck.

  I focus on the two runeknights beside me. We are at the rear of the formation. Could I strike now, remove two more? No—the nature of heat-sense is that you sense in all directions at once. Nazak has his eyes, so to speak, on me at all times.

  Into the tower's maw we go. The fleeing demons are still rushing before us. Past them, at the very edge of my vision, I sense Vanerak, Helzar, Halax, and two other runeknights. We pass one dead dwarf, his armor melted from within and rent with ragged holes likely from Helzar's barbed spear, but that's all the losses they have taken.

  The demons stall; Helzar and one more have turned to face them. The demons charge them and are torn to pieces. That's all of them: a hundred destroyed in under ten minutes. I cannot quite believe the power of my own runes.

  Yet this is not entirely good news for me. Is our battle then over? I grow nervous. I was going to use the chaos to strike, but is the chaos ended? Are we going to waltz into the city's most secret chamber with no more opposition?

  Vanerak and the others are not advancing completely unimpeded. Heat flashes in front of them at regular, short intervals. They are still fighting. As we close in, I see that they are being assailed by a stream of demons charging one by one quickly and relentlessly.

  Slash or stab, Vanerak ends each one as soon as it comes into range. Occasionally one will dart over his head and try to possess one of the dwarves behind—spears take care of them.

  The demons' efforts are hopeless. I curse. I need some more terrible threat, some distraction. Will resistance stiffen the further we go? The corridor begins to angle upward and turn to submerged stairs. This does not slow Vanerak down. He seems unstoppable.

  Up the stairs, though, I see something that may be of use: the magma cuts off into void, and it is not the void of solid stone, but rather seems to be of air. Whoever goes through and removes his helm will not be able to see what happens under the magma. I can kill one or two, maybe—or is this still too great a risk? Will questions be asked if those who were behind me do not reappear?

  We approach the break in the magma more closely. Vanerak steps right before it. He slashes down one demon, then tears off his heat-mask. He vanishes upward. Halax follows suit, then a few of the seconds degrees, then Helzar.

  Nazak turns and motions me forward. I grit my teeth and obey. It seems that he also saw the risk this blind-spot poses and isn't going to let me take advantage of it. He stands close behind with his axe at the ready, and I can sense the true metal in its edge. My armor will not stand a blow from it.

  Reluctantly I advance. I step up onto a solid stair, up another, and the weight and heat of the magma vanishes from my head and shoulders. Void surrounds me. I hurry to undo the clasps of my heat-mask and pull it off. I remove my breathing-cable too, leave it with the rest on one of the wide steps.

  I look up. Before me the situation is the same as it was in the magma, though now outlined in color and light instead. Vanerak slashes in time with each step, rending apart the mirages of heat that sail down toward us. The rest of the dwarves step in time with him.

  We are advancing steadily. I follow, Nazak still close behind me. The stairs bend to the left then begin to corkscrew up. Armored clatters echo loudly.

  Our rate of advance increases as the number of demons decreases. We've won, surely. Even if they are saving their strength for some final push, we will tear it apart with ease. The power of a Runethane is proving too much—now the demons' attacks cease entirely. The pace of our march increases to nearly a run. Vanerak is eager. Cold despair fills me and my ruby's blood-lust abates. The battle seems to be over.

  But our journey is not. We circle higher and higher up the steps. The scale of the corridor is immense, almost as if it was not made for dwarves. The kneeling figures on the walls are carved to look twice life-size. I notice that here they are runeknights in armor, and that the runes on them are different to those in the rest of the city. A few shapes seem familiar.

  These runes have power, I realize. There is a pattern to them I recognize from studying the books Vanerak gave me. Certain angles are common to them. These runes were created by the runeforger—the First Runeforger.

  Each of the figures is kneeling. And who might the first runeknights be kneeling before?

  I feel a shiver on my skin. Above us, at the termination of these spiral stairs, is surely the answer to many mysteries. That is why Vanerak strides so keenly.

  The stairs narrow and steepen. The spiral becomes tighter. The runeknights engraved on the wall have their visors tilted up, and are gazing forward with expressions of awe and gratitude so well-carved that behind my fear I begin to feel awe myself.

  The spiraling lessens. There is one more turn, a right angle one, and the stairs suddenly widen to fifty feet across. At their top is a gate of stone.

  Before those gates stands a dwarf in armor like frozen silver flames.

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